Walking through the streets of Alba recently, surrounded by gloriously garrulous, well-dressed Italians taking a stroll before dinner, I noticed a hand-written sign in a shop window. 'Tomorrow,' it proclaimed in Italian, 'is another special day.' You can say that again, I thought.

Piedmont, in northwest Italy, is one of my favourite vineyard regions, a place of tradition, natural beauty and superb food and wine. The best time to go is during truffle season, in November, but it's just as appealing in early summer, especially if you are tasting something as good as the 2004 Barolos, as I was.

Journalists come from all over the world to pronounce on the newly released Barolo vintage. We sit in a white room at the Palazzo Mostre e Congressi with five glasses in front of us, assessing sample after sample blind and trying to get a handle on the intricacies of the harvest. Cheerful sommeliers bustle between the tables, pouring, pouring, pouring. One American journalist always insists on silence, but this year, the Trappist approach seemed even sillier than usual. The best 2004s are so good I wanted to break into song.

Part of the pleasure of this tasting marathon - I wrote notes on more than 170 wines - is comparing Barolo's different communes (Barolo itself, Castiglione Falletto, Grinzane Cavour, Novello, La Morra, Verduno, Monforte d'Alba and Serralunga d'Alba). There is no official Burgundy-style system of Grands, Premiers and Village-level wines in this most complex of Italian regions, so it pays to know which commune (and, increasingly, which vineyard) the wine came from. It also pays to know your grower, merchant or co-operative. Barolo is a small area producing limited quantities of highly prized wines, but quality varies from the sublime to the virtually undrinkable, even in a stellar vintage like 2004.

Some tasters make a big deal about the 'traditional' and 'modern' schools of Barolo, but I think the distinction is less relevant than it was a decade ago. Taken to extremes, both styles are difficult to enjoy: the former tannic, rustic and lacking in fruit; the latter chunky, over-oaked and devoid of the perfume and subtle charms of the Nebbiolo grape. But such wines are increasingly rare. As the Serralunga-based producer Paolo Manzone put it: 'Most people are modern and traditional at the same time.'

Not all of the top producers participate in the tastings. To name only a handful of superstar absentees, Domenico Clerico, Luciano Sandrone, Robert Voerzio, Bruno Giacosa, Angelo Gaja and Conterno Fantino did not enter their wines. But there were more than enough great Barolos on show to convince me that this is the greatest vintage I have ever tasted, more approachable than the almost as impressive 2001s, and just as complex, nuanced and perfumed.